This is a little book that serves as an enticing introduction to the Russia of the imprisoned Pussy Riot performance provocateurs. Nadya T. is serving two years in a forced labor camp for the crime of “blasphemy” (Tsarist era law to protect religious orthodoxy brought back by Putin). Halfway through her time she manages to strike up a correspondence with the Slovenian philosophical provocateur Slavoj Zizek. They are very warm exchanges on political struggle, artistic expression and freedoms.. and very solid agreement that post 1989 Russia and much of the former Soviet satellite east are now suffering the worst of “both worlds.” Stalinism continues– her experience in the Siberian Gulag 2012 is no different than that level of existence and misery that millions lived through as a result of their crimes (thoughts/words/music/painting) against the state AND a state capitalism to boot! She is out now and hopefully the two will collaborate again, with their increased global celebrity status they will be listened to.

All that is Solid Melts into Air

“To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world—and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.”
Marshall Berman (1982)